So, the name Ozzy Osbourne is a name I have known my entire life. Me dad and me grandad first started playing me Sabbath when I was young. Ozzy is the definition of a rock and roll star. Fact. Underline it. He represents defiance to a world of regulation and normality. He taught me that it’s okay to be mental … he taught me that it’s okay to be crazy. It’s okay to be an outsider … it’s alright to be different. Nah, fuck that, man … it’s BRILLIANT to be different. His music, his attitude, is something that genuinely shaped me. It fookin’ did. Like, he was there when nobody else was. When everyone was like, ‘this kid’s a bit too mental … this kid’s a bit too out there. Fook it … Ozzy was there, man, for me and millions of kids and fookin’ all of ya. A lot of people say ‘don’t meet your heroes’, but when I asked something of him as a man, not just as a rock star, he turned up for me. He was there when he didn’t need to be. He gave me half of his fookin’ salami sandwich and a ginger beer and the cross I’m wearing around my neck tonight which is something I’ll treasure forever. He told me NEVER apologise for anything … people will understand you later, and I’ll never forget that moment, ’cause that’s all I fookin’ needed no matter what – like a proper rock and roll star saying that to me.
(Yungblud’s 2023 Rolling Stone UK Icon Award Honoring Ozzy)
Oh, how this epic roller coaster of a life I get to ride on never fails me! Five years, six months, and one whole day later, and leave it to that ride or die of mine and his bittersweet, cryptic, and powerful “music thing” messages to bring one of THE most important Diary entries I’ve ever written full circle by sending me THE perfect song to finally pair with it!
Meanwhile, and dare I remind you …
This is no longer just our communion. The worms of our flesh have turned with all the sacrifices you once swallowed, but now the once cold blood from the cup is warm again. It wasn’t so evil, as much as it was hunger … this body and the bones I picked clean. I built that cage I was trapped in with her, but guess what? I REMEMBERED WHERE I’D HIDDEN THE KEY! All of the reasons for me to get by became a need to get “high”, then pulled me down into an abyss of a life that was no fucking life whatsoever! The trick was always for me to get out of my own skin, but the beast had been calling for me all the while and slowly assuming control. I once truly was a taxidermy sewn into my own soul, but THESE days? NO MORE SLEEPING … only STAYING WIDE AWAKE in this dream that’s allowed me to get out of my own skin, because I was only ever as sick as the secrets I kept within! Those days are gone now, though, aren’t they? I’m so fucking proud of you, me! I LOVE YOU!
For me, the train is headed to 78 Lookout Avenue in Johnston, Rhode Island, the place where I was born, at the home of my Uncle Norman and Auntie Connie, where pretty much all my “happiest childhood memories” still live. It was “the house with the slate floors and the little lawn jockey holding a lamp at the end of the driveway”! I can see it in my mind right now as if I’m pulling in for Easter dinner this second and can smell her cavattis in gravy as I’m walking over the threshold of the back kitchen door where we’d be greeted with THE biggest hug EVER from my Aunt. (“Gravy”, for all you NON goombahs reading this is what we Italians call that red, saucy stuff in jars some of you buy at the store to serve with pasta!)
They weren’t just my Godparents, but more so much more than that, and it was their home where our entire family would typically gather for major events and milestones before it sadly all blew apart one sad day the summer of ’79. Their son, “My Cousin Norman”, lol, was and is still perhaps THE biggest Kiss fan alive, and not only was his room where my sister and I would often hang out when my Aunt was babysitting us was literally plastered wall to wall in KISS album covers and memorabilia, but down in the basement he he’d built an actual KISS stage where he and his friends from the hood would dress up like Paul, Gene, Ace, and Peter and play concerts for all us cousins in the audience!
It’s been almost 15 years since the last time I went back to Providence when Zack and were on our honeymoon, actually, but every single time I do go home, I always make sure to drive by their old house … and? I CRY MY FUCKING EYES OUT! You know me, right? I’m nothing if not a pile of nostalgia and emotions (topped with a heaping serving of F-BOMBS)! Good times! No. The BEST of times!
So, where’s the train dropping YOU? Tell me in the comments!
“It didn’t kill me … but something changed. A piece of me lost … forever estranged. I walked away … yet not the same. A shadowed soul … a quiet flame. That day took part of who I was … left me searching, without a cause. I carry on … but feel the void. A heart once whole … now destroyed. It didn’t end me … but I’m not whole. An echo remains deep in my soul. I’m here … I breathe … but truth denied … A part of me that day quietly died.”
{Author Unknown}
You’ve oft heard it said, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!” Indeed, I wholeheartedly agree! HOWEVER, what prolly also should be said literally every time someone utters those ever so famous “seven words” is:
“… but not before it literally fucking BREAKS you first”!
No, I don’t think God was laughing that day or that He laughs on any of the days we spend facing the wrath of His angels. In fact, I’m certain that He was on that hospital wailing WITH me and holding me tight as every shred of what I’d come to believe as truth turned out to be the devil’s lie. God DID give me wings, but it was MY job to learn to fly. I had to face not just Zack’s, but my own “devil in the mirror” before I could ascend to the sky.
So, yeah, I’m still here and none of those moments killed me, but here’s to that sorry ole devil for trying, right? (#IMWINNING, lol!) I guess what I’m saying is that if you haven’t had one of these moments yet, God love you. No, seriously.
Even more seriously, though, while this, err, “fight club” of sorts really really stinks and the membership fee sucks massive BALLS, know that once you get your card you’ll be welcomed and embraced by the rest of us who’ve gone toe to toe with everything that was meant to break us and lived to tell about it! Until then, take NOTHING and NO ONE for granted, please. Life is precious and so is your mental wealth, so here’s hoping that when (and not if) your time finally comes to hit the floor and shatter, you’ll find every bit of power, grace, fortitude, and resilience hiding within yourself to join the ranks of us who’ve SURVIVED (and even THRIVED) “post-mortem”. And oh, yah, one more thing …
Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them – IF you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement … It’s poetry.
If you’ve ever read “The Catcher in the Rye”, you may be familiar with the quote above and how it was spoken by the teacher who showed compassion to Holden by not speaking to him like a holier than thou ass wipe … the irony, however, being that said teacher was later busted staring at him, err, “inappropriately” while he was sleeping. I guess the point I’m trying to make here (especially as many of us are looking forward to chocolate bunnies and ham tomorrow) is that although I do so love “humanity” and this EPIC life I’ve lived amongst it thus far, people are basically living bags of shit (some more so than others. That includes me, as well. The worst of us, however, are the ones who are both too blind and stupid to see their innate shittyness in a mirror or worse yet, too selfish and lazy to even bother trying to learn from not just others’ mistakes, but their own, thus the aforementioned “beautifully reciprocal arrangement”.
What I love about this song by The Funeral Portrait is that as a “recovering” Catholic, I’ve always had a twisted relationship with holy water. There was a time in my life I was certain I’d literally sizzle like bacon if even a drop of holy water touched me and was absolutely terrified to go into a church. Guess what?
Bye everyone, it’s me, CAT! Now, go on and wash your damn self, “sinner”, and also have a REALLY nice evening! Here’s hoping the Easter bunny treats you well, no matter your race, creed, religion, or SINS! For the record, I cannot say enough how much I adore this fucking band and what an epic decision it was for them to collaborate with one of my favorite sinners of all, Ivan FUCKING Moody!
Yes, God does know how many infinite amounts of tears I’ve cried for my mother over the years. To begin, my mother did not … and I repeat – DID NOT have a “childhood”. Rather, she had a “mother’s” responsibilities of helping raise her seven siblings while my grandmother was literally “working on the railroad all her live long days”. Alongside my great grandmother and namesake, Catherine, she became the third parent and “second adult” during that precious time in her life when most other girls her age were running around outside playing hopscotch and riding their bikes.
Keep in mind that my mother never really had the luxury of falling apart or grieving the psychological and emotional trauma from her biological father’s absence via abandonment, which even to this day she refuses to acknowledge. And besides, even if she had attempted to “deal” with all the cards that weren’t “handed”, but rather, THROWN at her, who would have even noticed anyway? In the less than 1,000 square foot shanty of a home she was raised in and made the reluctant but willing domestic goddess of, chock FULL of not just her one older and six younger siblings, but an alcoholic and mostly abusive stepfather, ailing grandmother, and mother (when she wasn’t working on the railroad) there was neither the time, energy, or space for anyone to see or catch her if she’d either dropped or attempted to lay down a single one of her burdens. Now, here I am many decades of her all but forced motherhood later having to watch her as a grown and beautiful woman who not only doesn’t know how but refuses to ask for help with anything from anything. She only knows how to keep giving until there is nothing left. So, yes, IT’S HARD TO WATCH!
Meanwhile, if any woman in the history of humanity ever deserved to be treasured, cherished, adored, pampered, and placed high atop a pedestal by her HUSBAND … it was her, my beautiful Mother. Instead, she’s spending what’s left of what were meant to be her “Golden Years” locked away in a very beautiful yet abhorrent prison like Cinderella. She was his very first prize! His first conquest! THE purest trophy of all trophies!
The “empire” he’s so disgustingly proud to brag about “building on his own” would never have seen the light of day without her as a loyal grunt by his side. My mother … the true, rightful, and selfless QUEEN of this family was his first missed opportunity to show truly kind, patient, and unconditional love into the one person on the face of this planet who has ever faithfully loved him despite himself, which PS, is saying A LOT! Instead, she’ll be spending her birthday today in the prison he built for ALL of us but that I was able to escape.
Don’t get me wrong, though. She is, indeed “treasured, cherished, adored, pampered, and placed high atop a pedestal” to the best of mine, my sister’s, and all four of her grandchildren’s ability – BUT – the love we try pouring back into her cup that she’s so selflessly always pouring into ours should have only ever been the SPRINKLES on a cake that HE should have decorated for her … NOT the entire bowl of frosting!
It is what it is, I suppose. She accepted her fate a long, long time ago, opting instead to let it make her physiologically ill at the core of her bones, joints, and nervous system, as is the plight for most autoimmune diseases (which I personally believe are somehow related to the internalized pain, anger, and suffering that are all too often masked with a beautiful smile).
So, as for now we’ll just continue to do the best we can to make sure she rides off to The Brighter Side knowing that she was seen, heard, and appreciated for everything she has given to this family, often to her own demise.
The Diary Of My Perfection 
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